A roughly one-mile main road was closed in Dortmund to allow the crowd — brightly and scantily clad and mostly young — to dance to techno music blasted from 37 floats. Some 250 DJs were taking part in the event.

Once a summer institution in Berlin, the parade — staged under the motto "Highway of Love" — moved last year to Germany's industrial Ruhr area.

The original Berlin Love Parade grew from a 1989 peace demonstration into a huge outdoor celebration of club culture that drew about 1.5 million people at its peak in 1999.

Financial problems forced its cancellation in 2004 and 2005. The parade returned in 2006, attracting between 500,000 and 700,000 people, but organizers failed to reach an agreement with city officials — fed up with arranging security and sanitation services — forcing the event to seek another home.